The 12th annual Hands Across the Bridge begins on Saturday at 10 a.m. in River’s Edge Park. It celebrates neighbors in recovery from mental illness or addiction.
- “It’s just a powerful, uplifting event that we have every year to really show our communities that recovery is possible,” Maggie Ballard from Heartland Family Service said.
- “I was at a gas station, I was homeless and I said, ‘I need help.’ I said it just to the universe or whatever and I was arrested 10 minutes later. So, not the help I thought I was going to get, but didn’t see it at the time, that absolutely saved my life,” said Jessie Haggas, who now works with other women getting sober.
- FOR MORE INFO: PreventionMeansProgress.Org
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Jessie Haggas told me, getting arrested was the best thing for her.
I’m your southwest Iowa neighborhood reporter Katrina Markel in Council Bluffs. And I’m at the Bob Kerrey Bridge because on Saturday morning, Jessie will tell her addiction recovery story at an event called Hands Across the Bridge.